Personal Statement Essay Tips

Personal statements are an important way to make your college admissions essay stand out. Your essay will also highlight your personal and academic achievements while showcasing your creativity. It is crucial to have a great personal statement. This information will help you structure a great personal statement through brainstorming, drafting and revising. This personal statement will help collegeadmissions officers see you for who you are and why you should attend their school.

Admissions officers are looking for specific things when they read your college admissions essay. They are looking for how you are going to benefit their school and how your education will benefit by attending their institution. They are also looking for how and why your life’s events have shaped you into the person you have become and how you will use that to help better their school.

A personal statement is reflective and honest. It shows that you can look back on your personal experiences and how they have shaped you with a clear eye. Our experiences in the past shape our future. A personal statement that shows a good awareness of the past signals a bright future. It also gives the reader a great picture of you and your goals and values, especially in how you have faced anddealt with obstacles.

Do not write an essay simply glorifying your personal accomplishments. No one wants to read an account of how amazing you are – it can sound arrogant. Instead, focus on the quality of your accomplishments, not the quantity. Focus on the experiences that have changed you as a person. If you worked at a food bank, that is great, but if being the note taker for a disabled student is what reallyhelped you, then that is what should go in your essay.

Make sure your essay follows proper grammar and punctuation guidelines. This may seem like a given, but many college admissions officers tell us that you would be surprised how many casual and flippant or unsophisticated essays they receive.

It cannot be stated enough how important a good introduction is. Have others read your paper and use resources available on our site to make sure you are righting a catchy introduction. Predictable and conventional is fine to play it safe, but remember that your admissions officer is reading hundreds and possibly thousands of papers. Description and imagery are best used here.

Make sure you are not trying to sound perfect. Perfection is not realistic and people who cannot state any of their own flaws seem fake and suspicious. It is important, however, to turn your blemishes into positives. Have you ever interviewed for a job and been asked the question, “What is your biggest challenge?” Well, in your personal statement you must lay out your biggest challenge, but also describe how you have overcome it and it is now an asset. Do not simply say, “I procrastinate all of my big projects until the last minute but I work great under pressure.” Instead, turn that into a positive by saying you are so good at research and development that it does not take you long to turn research intoa great paper.

There is no right way to write a personal statement, but there are some great guidelines. If you follow these, you are sure to have success in getting into the college of your dreams.